Miles Straume/Theories
Candidacy * Miles was crossed off the list of candidates because he chose the "wrong side" (as stated by Bram) and "sided" with Widmore (who is thought to be on the same side as The Man in Black). ** Widmore and The Man in Black are clearly not on the same side. ***This doesn't mean that Widmore and Jacob are on the same side. ****Actually, that is precisely what it means. The conflict was between Jacob and The Man in Black. Besides, Widmore confirmed that Jacob came and visited him off the Island and had him come back. * Miles was crossed off because he resolved his troubling past by working things out with his father, Pierre Chang in the 70's which was the source of all his problems. **Miles working out his father issues would've made him a better Candidate, not getting crossed out. *He was crossed out also because of his greed. *Miles' greed could fall under the category of using his "gift" to sense the dead for the wrong reasons. If Miles can misuse his "gift", then he can just as surely use it the way Jacob intended.Islandmatrix 14:19, February 13, 2011 (UTC) MIB wants off the island. Widmore wants Ben Linus, and control of the island. Jacob wants to prove humanity's worth. All have different motives, and objectives. Key figure of "Team Jacob" * He is an assistant to "Team Jacob" and cannot be a candidate and assistant at the same time. As the Man in Black has revealed to Benjamin Linus, he was aware of John Locke's final thoughts when he died. Miles possesses the same gift and is probably the only one on "Team Jacob" who has it, suggesting it may have an important role in events yet to come. Abilities * Miles can talk to the dead since he can see through time. In Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, he theorizes that time is not linear. Everything exists at once, just at different points in the fourth dimension. Because of Pierre Chang's experiments in the Orchid, Miles is able to talk to the dead at different points in time. Perhaps more significant is the concept of Hypertime in the Watchmen where Dr. Manhattan experiences all things in all times at the same time. ** In "Some Like It Hoth," Miles tells Hurley he cannot talk to the dead and that nobody can talk to the dead because their brains are gone. He is adamant about this and does not believe Hurley's claim of having conversations and seeing the dead. Miles also only knows what they were thinking around the time of their deaths; he does not gain all their knowledge from all time. For example, when they went back to the 1950s during the flash and he walked over the recent graves of the dead U.S. soldiers, he did not know what year it was. * Miles and the grandson were somehow connected before the episode he was introduced. This explains why Miles knew what he was asking about in the first place when he asks "where is it". ** This seems evident, based on Miles' knowledge that the grandson had been murdered and that he had a significant amount of money hidden in his room. Miles went straight to the grandson's room and did not ask to see his grave or cremated remains. It's possible that Miles came across the murder scene or encountered the grandson's remains by chance; if the grandson knew he was about to die, he would certainly have been worried about the money and drugs he had hidden in his grandmother's house. * Miles learned at an early age he had an ability to hear the thoughts of dying people, and decided to exploit it even if he didn't understand where it came from or how it worked. There was no two-way communication with them in that he could not speak to the dead (like his ad claimed), but he was able to pick up on their thoughts, which he could repeat in such a way it gave him credibility as a medium. * Miles' "ghostbusting" device: ** The device he uses in the grandmother's home is an air-cooling device to create a temperature differential, drawing in warmer air from outside of the room and revealing the location of the air vent - the circulating air causes the bag of money to move. ** The device that Miles uses is a way to feed the ghost energy, most likely he uses it to produce high EMF's (electromagnetic fields) so that the ghost can use that so he can communicate easily with it. Many ghost hunters believe that a ghost's main way of communication is through manipulating EMFs. ** The device Miles uses is a prop, he uses it in his "ghost busting business" because people are more accepting of the idea that machines can detect ghosts through EMF's rather than the fact that someone might possess an ability allowing them to do exactly what Miles does. The device creates the illusion that Miles is harmless without such machines. ** The device also creates noise to cover what he is saying or doing, especially if the most profitable part of his job was finding valuables the dead had hidden somewhere. He also made it look "cool" to match his deception. ** Miles never uses his device on the island, nor does he use it during his "audition" for Naomi or during his "seance" with Mr. Gray, so it is clearly a prop he uses during supposed exorcisms, likely to cover actual noise he is making. * His power appears to be very similar to that of Harry Keogh, the main character in Brian Lumley's Necroscope series. Unlike Keogh, however, Straume has only been shown using his abilities for material gain, whereas Keogh uses his powers to ease the suffering of the dead and become enriched by their considerable knowledge and experience. * His powers are due to having been born on the island. His experience of speaking to the dead is similar to when characters hear whispers. Both of which have to do with the supernatural qualities of the island. ** It seems unlikely he was born on the island. When Amy goes into labor, the doctor says, "Our women always travel to the mainland to deliver." If the baby of one of the key figures there had been born on the island just a few months before, he would know that and would have said "usually" instead of "always." Additionally, Ethan was born on the Island, and he is never shown to have any abilities whatsoever (except to always mysteriously look much older than someone supposedly born in 1977). * Miles says to Charlotte something like "After all that time you spent trying to get back here" and then he goes "What do I mean?" Charlotte's dead body would be left on the island from the last time flash, so Miles might be hearing her dead thoughts from the island (as her body has presumably decomposed), he probably doesn't fully understand it himself, hence the "What do I mean?" ** His question to himself seems rhetorical and coy, not genuine. * Miles can read minds, to the extent of learning someone's true nature, but not necessarily all the details of what they're thinking. When he's close to someone, he can learn their true name and the most prominent thing on their minds (i.e. their heart's desire). This is how he knew Michael was lying about his name, and he had probably got a reading on the rest of the Kahana's crew. He could also tell Charlotte was born on the island and had been desperately trying to return there. ** These readings may only arise if someone is going to die very soon, i.e. Michael, all of the Kahana's crew, and Charlotte. This links all of his abilities to death. *** 99% of the people Miles encounter all die soon. If he were really able to find out the truth about things from those near death, when he was begging his dying mother for information, he would have picked up something about the Island, which would have been on her mind. He also would have had some idea about who Bram was and his heart's desire to "protect Jacob" which Miles would have thought odd. "I'm This Way" * Recurring lines are a big thing in LOST, and there may be a parallel between the two instances of this line in Season 5: Richard Alpert and Miles Straume both saying "I'm this way" when referring to their powers. And since Richard said his came from Jacob, then Jacob (or maybe the Island itself) may be responsible for Miles. * Much like Richard, Jacob had (or has) special plans for Miles. This may be why out of all the Kahana crew, Bram (i.e. Jacob's people) singled him out to warn him about the island, because they knew that Jacob had given him his gift in the first place. * Miles got his power partly because of his father's exposition to the electromagnetic pocket below the Orchid. And also because of his own involvement with and proximity to the Incident while simultaneously being alive in two places at the same time. Why Miles Wanted to Leave By Himself In "What They Died For," Miles says that he is going out to the jungle. The reason for this is so that he can find his father's grave/burial site (or possibly the DHARMA Pit where the Others placed the DHARMA people after the purge) and listen to what he has to say. de:Miles Straume/Theories es:Miles Straume/Theories fr:Miles Straume/Theories it:Miles Straume/Theories